FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN

VOICES OF:
Takahiro Sakurai, Ayumi Ito, Shotaro Morikubo

2005, 101 Minutes, Directed by:Tetsuya Nomura

Description:Continuing the storyline based on the hit Playstation game Final Fantasy
VII, two years have passed since the ruins of Midgar stand as a testament to
the sacrifices made in order to bring peace. However, the world will soon
face a new menace. A mysterious illness is spreading fast. Old enemies are
astir. And Cloud, who walked away from the life of a hero to live in
solitude, must step forward yet again . . .—
Amazon.com

When some major characters that haven’t been featured before literally
plopped out of the sky at the one-hour mark to help the hero battle the
villains, we finally gave up on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

No, the VII
nomenclature doesn’t mean that you’ve missed out on several hastily-produced
sequels between this movie and the 2001 movie,
Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within. Final Fantasy VII is the
movie sequel to the, um, computer games that inspired the first Final
Fantasy movie . . . Except that there doesn’t seem to be any connection
whatsoever between the computer games and the first Final Fantasy
movie.

Whatever. The point is that this movie is aimed squarely at fans of the
Final Fantasy games and no one else need apply. Somehow it was
inevitable that not only would movies one day look like the computer games
that inspired them, but that movie sequels would be made to computer games.

I was
however wondering whether gamers at whom the movie is ultimately aimed would
be all that happy with Final Fantasy VII. After all, it is like
watching someone else play a computer game over their shoulders — and if
you’re not playing yourself, what’s the point of that? Essentially a
computer game without any interactivity, Final Fantasy VII just keeps
on getting worse: newbies or people who haven’t been following the computer
game for quite a while will have a tough time following the plot, which is
at once too complicated (there is too much of a complex back story) and too
simple (it really serves as little else than an excuse to tie one fight
sequence to the next).

The animation is detailed, but
the “tasteful” grey hues give it a dull drab look. The plot involves . . .
um, where to begin? There is a whole lot of New Age gobbledygook about Gaia
(the Earth) having been betrayed by giant Electricity firms. Then there’s a
warrior named Cloud with a, um, really big sword who fights a motorbike gang
consisting of some pansy-looking long-haired anime types. There is a lot of
fighting. People drop out of the air. They fight some more. The End. In this
sort of thing they would usually throw in some big-breasted female character
to distract from the various plot inanities, but Final Fantasy VII never
accords its viewers that sort of courtesy. And in-between all the fighting emo anime characters I just really missed that . . .